Little Wet Dog Photography

Sunday, October 26, 2008

Hello!

Just wanted to send a quick update from Sedona! Attached is a small photo from my camera phone (this is “Devil’s Arch”).

Yesterday was day 1, mom drove us to the airport at 6am (with homemade breakfast in hand). We arrived in Phoenix around 11am, and drove straight up into Sedona with only a quick stop at Starbucks for our Venti Mocha Light Frappacino Double Blend fix (yea… i said all that!). We then drove up to Sedona and arrived yesterday around 4pm. In the evening we drove up to Schnebly Hill Road for the sunset. I was surprised to see a large band of my people — yes an entourage of photographers take pictures of the mountain. There was even “that guy” — you know him — he’s the guy with three bags of gear and a vest and gear pants full of stuff which 50% he probably doesn’t know how to use and the half is just overkill. We just laughed at him as we trotted by with our one backpack and one tripod and two camera phones. We also saw some real pros out there, so I listened into their conversation and watched  and got some pointers. Forgot to mention the fab restaurant we ate at. In case you are ever in Sedona, make sure you visit the “Barking Frog”. We had the pecan bisque (soup), house salad, cactus fries, mango swordfish, shrimp tamale’s, Sedona sangria, cactus Mojito, and a shot of tequila. If that weren’t enough, we rounded it all out with a coffee crème brulee. And good night!

Today, day 2, we rose early and explored the “Airport Trail” where we met a really friendly half wolf half Malamute. We stopped and played and the owner was an elderly women who gave us some suggestions for trails to take. Always best to learn from the locals! We rushed back to a nice breakfast of fruits, potato hash browns with eggs, and strawberry French toast. Yum! Then we explored the northwest part of Sedona, and did some outback 4 wheel drive craziness. Bouncy bouncy went the SUV. We explored Sycamore mountain area, Casner Mountain, and then completed the Boyton pass loop. Then we ate the Javelina cafe… their vegetarian fajita’s are simply yummy! Did I mention yummy? Finally we hiked up Devil’s Bridge (1mile) to get to the “Devil’s Arch”. It was a long long arch way that one could walk across to get to the other side. The crossing was about 1 foot in width and depth. Good luck. (Gave me a flashback to my excursion to Huayna Picchu in Peru.) The drop down from the arch was about 400 feet, so one small wrong step and we’d be pealing Plum Jam off of the side of the mountain. Ha! Well luckily my slip was only a few feet so you’ll be seeing me again my friends! Then we came home, showered, and now write you our evening remarks. Funny thing is… the grey haired ladies next door were going out for a night on the town just as we rolled in exhausted and ready for bed. Wow. Maybe we are beyond retired!?!?!?!

Seeing as it is now 8:10pm, we old folks need to retreat for the night. Tomorrow we plan to rise at 4:30am to visit the “Soldiers Pass” (2.3 miles), get breakfast at the A Sunset Château, then hit the “Rim Shadows”, and finally take lunch (peanut butter sandwiches and trail mix) on the go (literally go go go) and hike up Bell Rock Pathway (3.5 miles) and Cathedral Rock (.6 miles). Lastly. Tomorrow night we’ll wind down the evening with a 2 mile hike up to “Dry Creek Mountain” (to watch the 6:30pm sunset).

Sorry I can’t send any better pics yet, they are all on my Canon DSLR and I won’t be accessing the memory cards until next week.

Good night!

Cheers,

Agnes & Ben from Sedona